1. Field
Embodiments relate to a moving robot, and more particularly, to an apparatus, method, and medium for localizing a user by a moving robot or localizing a moving robot from a fixed point.
2. Description of the Related Art
In general, robots have been developed for industry and used for factory automation, or used to substitute humans to operate in extreme environments in which it is unsafe for humans. Robots are even being used for the state-of-the-art aerospace industry and more and more uses of robotic technology are being developed. As a result, human-friendly domestic robots have been developed in recent years. In addition, robots are substituted for medical instruments and used to medically treat micro human biologic tissues that cannot be treated by conventional medical instruments in a human body. Because of remarkable developments, robotics is in the spotlight as a state-of-the-art technological field that is expected replace the information revolution and biotechnology, which followed the information revolution.
In particular, a domestic robot is the leading robot that expands the past field of heavy industry-centered robotics limited to industrial robots into a new field of light industry-centered robotic technology. A cleaning robot is one example of domestic robots. A cleaning robot typically includes a driving unit for movement, cleaning unit for cleaning, and a location detecting unit for detecting a location (hereinafter, referred to as localization) of itself or a user (remote control).
Supersonic sensors are usually used as localizing units. The localizing unit measures the distance between a transmitter and a receiver using several sensors and localizes an object by applying trigonometry to the measured distance. As an example in the related art, a localization apparatus is disclosed in Korean Patent Application Publication No. 2006-0011552 (Title of the Invention: Mobile Robot And His Moving Control Method) of LG Electronics Inc, as shown in FIG. 1, which includes supersonic sensors 12a to 12h mounted on the surface of a moving robot 10 and a RF receiver 11 disposed on the center of the moving robot 10.
In the Korean Patent Application Publication, the moving robot 10 and the remote control 20 are synchronized by the RF transmitter 21 provided to the remote control 20, the supersonic sensors 12a to 12h measure travel times of supersonic waves transmitted from a supersonic generator 22 provided in the remote control 20 and calculates the distances, and a user or the remote control 20 is localized by applying trigonometry to the calculated distances.
As seen from the configuration described above, in order to localizing objects using trigonometry, a plurality of supersonic sensors should be mounted in a moving robot. Accordingly, in addition to increase of cost in manufacturing, the design of a moving robot is restricted due to the sensors mounted on the surface of the moving robot. Further, when the sensitivities of several supersonic sensors mounted on a moving robot are different, considerable errors may be caused in localizing the moving robot.
Therefore, it is needed to devise a method of localizing a moving robot using a single receiving sensor.